At last a true success story amongst my legumes! I have no complaints at all, they did exactly as promised on the packet, grew, produced massively fat pea pods which I ate and I ate a lot.
Being marrowfat in nature these start off looking fairly indistinguishable from the sugar snaps that were still going at the time so a few were picked prematurely. Tough little skins though, not mistake worth making. Then suddenly without warning somebody’s been round with a bicycle pump and blown them all up like sausage balloons, huge peas swelling and straining against their green encasings.
Quantity? I picked handfuls daily, big bagfuls in the bottom of the fridge keeping me happy for weeks. I like my peas raw as part of a salad or straight from the shell; pop, split, gobble. I don’t actually think one made it to being cooked, I fear it would kill the majority of the flavour and despite being marrowfat there was no way mine were being served mushed with chips. I have yet to actually try a mushy pea so this is not so much snobbery as fear of the unknown. Best to try from a chippy first I feel. Taste? Delicious, ‘Onward’ get my vote.
As expected I did encounter one or two unwelcome friends upon splitting the pod, generally sat atop a pea waving at me. Horrible little things with black beady heads that look remarkably like maggots to my mind that quite turn the stomach and suddenly find me being terribly generous with my peas to others; “Here have one, watch for added protein!”
The stem of this pea is such a different beast to that of the sugar or broad, or even sweet, so thick and fleshy. Once bent over due to poor staking these were nigh on impossible to straighten back up and instead had to be left to grow sideways for sections before coaxing new growth up, leading to very deformed looking plants. So basically my vegetable patch was a thing of visual glory from start to finish, not. Lovely juicy feel to the stems though.
I will definitely be growing peas again. I think I bought another variety for next year so might really push the boat out and grow two varieties at once. These peas are officially the first vegetable grown from seed that I am not at all disappointed with! Its the small things in life that give me joy.
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